1. A Comparative Study of Climate Change in National Media: North & South Perspectives Paddy Coulter, Director, Oxford Global Media and Fellow, Green Templeton College, University of Oxford

2. Climate change coverage

3. Media Research Project Collaboration between 3 research teams in Ghana, Norway and China Wider multi-disciplinary international group of scholars and researchers, CERES²¹ CERES²¹ (Creative Responses to Sustainability) study of problems over creative adaptation to climate change Norwegian Research Council funding

4. Research Approach Purpose: to explore the framing of climate change in national media in 1.Ghana - the poorer South (University of Ghana School of Communication Studies) 2.Norway - the more affluent North (Norwegian School of Management, Oslo) 3.China - the rapidly growing East (Sun Yat-Sen University School of Government, Guangzhou)

5. Research Methodology Three leading newspapers per country monitored An elite paper, a popular paper and a specialist business paper Monitoring over 6 months January/June 2008 Keyword search on Climate Change and Global Warming Sample of 100 articles randomly selected for closer study Interviews with journalists/editors

6. Content Analysis of Newspapers (word counts) Climate ChangeGlobal Warming

7. Sources of Stories (numbers of articles)

8. Story Types (numbers of articles)

9. Story Treatment Prominence Ghana - stories tucked away inside except for “Accra Hosts Big Confab on Climate Change” front page lead China - story positioning related to governmental protocol, otherwise no favourable treatment Norway – more vigorous debate often gives stories prominent treatment but the only country to give significant space to contrarian views “No big stories come out of that [climate change]” Ghanaian editor interviewed in November 2008

10. Conclusions of Study 1. Climate crisis treated nowhere as more than an important secondary or tertiary level concern 2. Coverage studied suggests countries face up to crisis by different forms of escapism: Ghana escapes into victim role – the problem is for the industrialised countries to solve Norway is partly in denial but where action is deemed necessary prefers to intervene abroad to protect lifestyle China escapes by staging rapid growth to be modified only after the West has done its job

11. Further Information www.ceres21.org